| This dissertation uses archival materials to pursue three case studies of decision making about the topics and content of American foreign policy ideas in the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) from 1950 to 1980. I ask why the intellectual output of the CFR---edited books, monographs, discussion, and materials about the organization---appeared the way that it did. At the same time, I consider the question of how elites and the elite nature of the organization, either intentionally or unintentionally, influenced the intellectual output of the CFR. The most productive framework for answering these questions comes from organizational sociology, specifically theories of decision making in organized anarchies (Cohen, March, and Olsen 1972).;I study the choice of topics in the CFR's Program on Studies between 1955 and 1972; the selection of personnel, the content of discussions in Project working groups, and staff evaluations of essays for a volume on human rights for the 1980s Project, an endeavor designed to provide a coherent foreign policy framework; and a period during which the CFR came under attack from groups and individuals across the country for, these groups alleged, exerting undue control over government decision making.;Despite varying degrees of organized anarchy across the three cases resulting in outcomes unrelated to organizational goals, staff focus---sometimes explicit and often implicit---on fortifying the reputation of the organization provided a check on organized anarchy. To make this argument, I examine both CFR staff's articulated reasons for decisions, and the factors that best describe aggregated patterns of decisions staff made using quantitative methods. I find little evidence that elites in the organization sought to intentionally affect the intellectual output of the CFR. Instead, the elite nature of the organization affected the intellectual output in a more subtle way: CFR staff members adopted strategies and standards for completing their tasks that heavily depended on the elite nature of the organization.;This dissertation has implications for theories of organizational decision making, elite influence, and the source of policy ideas. |
